Paseo 15" Mags - Advice Needed Please

[Brisbane_Pierre]

Hi

Please bear with me, I'm new here.

My daughter recently bought a 1995 Paseo as her first car. It's a great little runabout - very zippy, and she loves it.

The Paseo came with 4 x 15 inch mags fitted. However the spare is a 14 inch steel wheel. I have been advised that it would be illegal to put the 14 inch spare on the car.

Can anyone please advise what would be the best option to resolve this problem, hopefully without having to spend too much money.

Appreciate your help folks

Cheers

Peter

[Hiro]

Who "advised" you? Sounds like complete baloney considering plenty of cars come with space-saver wheels that are smaller than the factory fitment - the key is keeping rolling diameter the same, so as long as your 14" spare has the same overall size as the 15" mags then there won't be a problem.

[Brisbane_Pierre]

Thanks for the info Hiro

"Advice" came from an engineer from the Auto Club. The tyres on the car are 195/50R15 and the spare is 185/60R14. Would you have the idiots guide to working out the rolling diameter?

Thanks again

[Hiro]

Tyre sizes are spot on, less than 0.5% different. Unless Queensland has some weird backward rule regarding spare tyres, there is no reason why that shouldn't be legal.

[Brisbane_Pierre]

Just got off the phone from Qld Department of Transport. Thats 30 minutes of my life I won't get back. The regs say, unless the spare is manufacturer supplied space-saver wheel/tyre - which this is not, all rims on the vehicle must be the same diameter. So it looks like I need to source a 15 inch wheel and 195/50R 16 tyre.

Any suggestions about what would be my best option to get out of this fairly cheaply?

Thanks all

[Hiro]

Sure they're referring to wheel/rim diameter and not overall rolling diameter?

[Brisbane_Pierre]

Yes I double checked. The regs - (VSB-14 i think?) specifically say rim size. If it was rolling diameter, we would have been home and hosed

[Tard]

Do you intend on using the spare as just that? If so, I would be more inclined to just leave it as is. Should the case arise that it is needed, you simply use the spare, get the main one fixed up, then swap it back around again.

[Brisbane_Pierre]

Yes the spare would simply be a designated spare, but they tell me that putting the spare on the car would result in the vehicle being considered unroadworthy, and there may be insurance implications if the car was involved in an accident whilst the spare was fitted.

[Hiro]

Straight from VSB14 http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/roads/vehicle_regulation/bulletin/vsb_ncop.aspx

All rims fitted to a front axle or a rear axle must be of the same diameter, offset, width and mounting configuration (except for spare wheels used in an emergency situation).

Thus, a spare wheel which is a different size/offset/width to the normal wheels fitted is perfectly legal, as long as it is a true spare and not used as part of the normal tyre rotation, and also that

The overall diameter of any tyre fitted to a passenger car or passenger car derivative must not

be more than 15mm larger or 26mm smaller than that of any tyre designated by the vehicle

manufacturer for that model

[Brisbane_Pierre]

Perfect . I'll take that as a win. Thankyou. I don't know what the guy from Dept Transport was banging on about then!

Cheers

[Tard]

Perfect . I'll take that as a win. Thankyou. I don't know what the guy from Dept Transport was banging on about then!

Cheers

What you did quote was correct however. There are regulations regarding actual space saver wheels/tyres... which your scenario does not apply as it is the original that would have come with the car.

A quote I once came across which sums everything up quite well however would be:

laws in this state are f***** up, it shows, even the people who are meant to enforce these laws, don't even know them